Official list of candidates for Tower Hamlets mayor: they’re all men

I’ll update this blog post as and when I get more information but here’s the official list of candidates for Tower Hamlets mayor.

It was announced today and it includes 10 names, all of them male.

Sigh.

Here’s the list:

The Lib Dem candidate , Reetendra Banerji, is an unknown in Tower Hamlets but a man of his name did he did stand in Hounslow in 2006, when his biog stated this:

Reeten Banerji, 32, is a maths teacher and Territorial Army member, serving in a Hayes based logistics regiment. He was born and has lived most of his life in the London Borough of Hounslow.

Reeten’s professional career, before teaching, had been with a major US telecommunications corporation in Atlanta, Georgia. He then moved into IT consultancy in Silicon Valley, California during the ‘dotcom’ years. He worked with a number of IT startup companies launching wireless Data Network products and services.

Reeten holds a Bachelors degree in Mathematics from London and an MBA from the University of North Carolina. He is a keen cyclist and is involved with the London Cycling Campaign helping to bring about the best possible services for people who cycle or who want to cycle in London.

He sounds far too sensible for Tower Hamlets but I hope he does well. Good luck to him.

The other name to strike out is Reza Shoaib Choudhury, who is standing as an independent. He is not so unknown in Tower Hamlets. In fact, he’s very well known, and popular. He is married to the lovely and lively Dr Anwara Ali, who was formerly a Labour councillor in Bow West before she defected to the Tories in 2010.

Shoaib is the boss of the Bengali satellite TV station, Channel i, so that’s one channel Lutfur will struggle to bring round to his ways. In fact, there’s an expectation that Shoaib could split the Bengali vote from Lutfur. Well, let’s see.

Here’s Shoaib’s leaflet:

The nominations for council candidates have also been published but I’ll leave that for another post.

15 Responses

Everyone knows women simply don’t have enough brains to get involved in TH politics. Its so dirty and corrupt that most women refuse to get involved. They simply won’t sink to the ultra low levels associated with the male TH political figures.

Besides women usually speak more common sense than men – at less that is what the boss keeps telling me 🙂

Seems SPLITTING THE VOTE is going to be “the name of the game” with this Mayoral Election.

I guess the trouble with creating an administration which becomes associated with gravy train behaviour is that inevitably there’s a few more people out there who think “I’ll have some of that” and/or “we can’t let this man continue to represent us!”. I don’t blame them.

I think we can expect an awful lot of people to be trying to get the vote out. I wonder if it might work against them.

PS Right click Shoaib’s leaflet and open in a new tab to read it much more easily

PPS I’ve known parking swing votes in a big way in other London Boroughs

This election is not about is not about manifesto, policy, voter appeal etc etc. Its all about those who will vote for Rahman and those who will vote against. It’s as simple as that.

The question is, is there one candidate who will attract the anti Rahman vote or with will it get split?

I am convinced the Ukip candidate will have a significant influence in this election. Not sure if it will help bigs though. Some will argue the Ukip factor will get more people out to vote who otherwise wouldn’t and they will give their second preference to Biggs.

I suspect these people will be the ‘forgotten’ white working class who will vote Ukip to protest against Labour therefore unlikely to put Labour as second choice.

It may also be the case that many traditional Labour supporters from the white working-class still think Labour is infiltrated by Bengali Muslims. In Ukip they now have a focal point to turn to. Ukip’s stance on immigration and right wing policies will appeal to the dissolutioned white working-class.

Biggs is banking on Lutfur not winning on first preference and him picking up second preference from the other parties. For the reasons explained above I can’t see this happening.

Rahman got a huge lift from the Panorama within his target voters. They were always going to come out in huge numbers but now will be a greater turnout.

If I was a betting man, I’d put my mortgage on Lutfur winning on the first round.

Wonder what the bookies are saying, they usually get it right.

So have the inspectors found any smoking gun yet? Cos, Rahman ain’t going nowhere after the election.

You’re completely missing the point – there’s also going to be a split vote amongst those who wish to vote for somebody with a Bengali background.

It’s by no means certain that Rahman will pick up all the Bengali votes because:
* there’s quite a few who are fed up with his behaviour – who will vote for other candidates
* there’s now a lot more competition for those votes!!!

Not sure what the point of this article is. Is there something wrong with the parties selecting the candidates they want or are we now bound by quotas and political correctness? Because the last time I looked the Commission for Racial Equality, or rather persecuting white people, had been abolished and it was only Labour that had all women short lists which have largely been a disaster.

What is interesting is why there are three Bangladeshi independents. It is either the fact that Bangladeshis like politics, they are naturals, or they are in fact to take a proportion of the vote that would have gone to Rahman.

While his core vote has hardened after the Panorama programme the soft edges particularly among the younger more media savvy Bangladeshis has started to see him as an embarrassment.

I think that we might see a re-run of the original Gilligan programme where he came across very badly as well as some of the Labour big hitters starting to descend on the borough. I’m into Paddy Power today so I’ll let you all know later what odds I get.

The three Bangladeshi independents are the most interesting aspect of this ballot.

Let’s not forget that those who challenge can be bought off…

Nor the habit that some people have of jumping ship and changing parties…

That’s a general observation and not meant in any way to negate their candidature. However I do very much think they’ll all find themselves getting visits from the Lutfurites and maybe a fair bit of pressure/charm applied.

One from the vaults here. Two years ago but it just shows how stupid the far left is. This was written before the collapse of The Bradford Spring, remember that? It was going to be what Respect in Tower Hamlets was going to be, the start of a new mass left of the Labour Party movement. Eeehr, no!